My good buddy - aesthetic ninja, culture warrior, and all around raconteur Stephen M. Deusner - just introduced me to the Magical 1990s MTV Simulator.
Clearly, it's a good thing that I've just finished reading my second Zombie Summer Reading pick.
Because I will never get anything done or read ever again.
But it got me thinking...decades have albums that go along with them pretty indelibly in the minds of music junkies. And it's the same way with books, I'd wager - whether the author is being held up as the voice of a generation (cough...breteastonellis...cough) or not.
So here's a fun game for your next erudite cocktail party or bar conversation: match 1990s books with 1990s albums. You can do it on the basis of how they fit into their respective aesthetic landscapes, or on any other axis - similarities in themes, styles, or maybe you just read one while listening to the other.
I'll start: Howard Stern's Private Parts and Joey Lawrence's Joey Lawrence. Both were evidence that you should probably dance with the one that brung ya, artistically speaking, and both of 'em sold a hell of a lot of units to people who liked saying things like "Bababooey" or "Whoa!".
Also, both make me weep silently into my hands.
Surely someone else can do better?
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4 comments:
I'm going to pair Grisham's "The Firm" with Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" because they are both vapid fucking shams that people still seem to think somehow transcend the pop genre, becoming something truly great, rather than the huge steaming piles they actually continue to be.
Ang, I think I love you.
Ah, Potts. I knew you'd find a way to somehow bring it around to books in the end.
I'm going to pair Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary with the Counting Crows's August and Everything After, as both are guilty pleasures that involve navel-gazing, injured young women, and whining.
And also Larry Brown's Big Bad Love and Wilco's Being There because I was listening to the latter around the same time I was reading the former, and they go together pretty well.
I'm going to go with The Virgin Suicides and Biggie's Ready to Die. And not just for the obvious reasons.
Also, Robert Olen Butler's Mr. Spaceman and Eric Clapton's Unplugged, because both were urine puddles made by men who should have hung it up long long ago, and because readers/listeners applauded them for wetting themselves.
Fun game.
Mary, Bridget Jones + Counting Crows = genius. Insert your own "Ms. Jones and me stumbling through the barrio" joke here.
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